Isle Pages

"The Islands"

By Di Morrissey

MacMillan, 483 pages

The writer is a former Hawaii resident—and former KGMB-TV producer—who now has a successful writing career in Australia, with a dozen books to her credit.

Her latest, set on Oahu and Kauai in the 1970s, tells the story of Catherine, a 21-year-old taking her first steps away from home. And are they ever big steps: On her first adult journey, she ends up engaged to a tall, handsome Navy man stationed at Pearl Harbor.

They marry, but the bloom quickly fades as Catherine finds the life of a military wife un-fulfilling and the overbearing attitude of her new husband constricting. At the same time, though, she discovers surfing and a certain surfer boy, so the romance continues.

"The Islands" is a bit of a time capsule, capturing a view not only of Hawaii in that decade, but also of the changing attitudes of women in the same era.